September 2000

ISSN 1480-6401

INTRODUCTION
MARIA JACKETTI
The Road to Gold, An Alchemical Prayer
CONTENTS
JANET I. BUCK
The Funeral Right
The Retina
The Viewing
Recorded Grief
Mosaic Bruise
Sudden Strokes
Under All Those Thunderheads
The 11th Commandment
Anger's River
JANET KUYPERS
Lost in the breeze
praying to idols
grab the other's neck
Start All Over
Gerbil
MY DEAD DAUGHTER
GARTH WEHRFRITZ-HANSON
The Wonder
Raising Lazarus
GABRIELA MISTRAL (Translated by Maria Jacketti)
The Vigilant Woman
Wall
The Sea
An Owl
The Little New Moon
POST SCRIPTUM
LI PO
Drinking Alone With The Moon

MARIA JACKETTI
The Road to Gold
An Alchemical Prayer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am Sedhana,
mercury
marinating
in the sun's liquid butter.
In am Ksetrukarana,
master
of the field where you plant.
I am Svedana,
mercury in the patient alembic,
but there to seal the gates
at the event horizon*.
I am Murchichana,
the swooning of mercury,
pregnancy of gold.
I am Uttahapana,
eternal-return-ever-changing:
mercury aroused
to burnished splendor
for her beloved.
I am Bodhana,
the awakening,
blithe erection,
the apotheosis of all jewels,
Of all colors,
I am violet, the end
of all visible rays,
the unribboning of light
to the invisible.
Of all fabrics,
I am silk,
the irony of mulberry leaf and worm.
Of all continents,
I am the resurrection of the
East in the hurried West.
I am India before Sanskrit,
before Vedic,
reborn in the Americas.
I am Niyamana,
shivering restraint
in love's fervor,
the glistering
of mahogany limbs.
I am Dipana,
enflamed to consume
all in my path.
I am Rajana,
the colored seeds
of all sacred geometries,
savage wildflowers
at the elemental loom.
I am Sarana,
menstrual drops mixed
with mercury,
a sandalwood forest
hung with near gold.
I am Kramana,
and so the process ends,
mineral wed in amber,
ikor-unguent,
cinnabar's outrageous
dream.
I am the body alchemical,
the Siddha map,
stretched pole to pole,
the weather controlled
by vital breath,
the control of age
and element,
the North Star,
the Southern Cross,
the constellations
still unborn,
the maternity ward
in Orion's belt,
I am the Pyramids yet
To be built in New Jersey,
where strip malls stand --
I am the starships to set to rise
from the coal pits
of Pennsylvania,
I am The Sphynx -Cheshire-cat-smiling-
on the White House lawn.
I am Mount Shasta erupting
laughter,
her clouds misting all of California,
nourishing her wine,
sealing the faults.
With karmic forgiveness,
I am the secrets of Roswell,
told straight and plain
to huddled masses.
I am the flag of this America,
Betsy Ross
suddenly queen
of all fashion --
where stars make
one ankh, squared.
Hegemony and liberation,
I am the kiss that awakens
the dead,
the touch that mends
all wounds.
And it is about time.
May 2000
*In quantum mechanics / astrophysics, when a star becomes a black hole,
an event horizon occurs. Time of any sort becomes an impossibility
after the event horizon seals the black hole. One second, an eternity,
all the same.
Outside the event horizon of the black hole, which acts as one way
consuming vortex, an interdimensional gateway to other realities, time
passes as the laws of physics allow, relative to space-time.

JANET I. BUCK
The Funeral Right
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two scrapbooks lay open
in margins of a casket's shadow
treating dying differently.
One is stoic; one is straight.
One is brick; one is clay.
I hate to own our bunker life,
honesty's fuhrer isn't nice.
Here we have the abscess grief.
All these bugs inside a bubble,
dodging moons with piercing rays.
Afraid to land on real times.
Craving passive oxygen.
This judgment seat begins to itch.
Take down screens,
break a window, anything.
We'll use our feet to sweep raw glass.
We step across each other's tears--
their corpses merely muddy possums
sitting in a drying ditch.
Family knots that should be braids.
Deceased should gather what's alive,
bring it to epitome.
Match of liquor stays our bunker
drowning out impending depth.
A false sense of brightness rules.
I want to live in the other text,
one truer to the inside pain;
not glued to spraying nests of bees.
They have grown from stings and swells,
earth rebuilt from tidal waves,
gracing the ground with poignancy.
Their widows are loved
and held and patted to sleep,
not some spider on a sill.
JANET I. BUCK
The Retina
~~~~~~~~~~
Graveyard snaps a portrait of dawn,
its edges flaming sepia.
I shudder and shutter reclaimable hugs.
Run my fingers through gardens
of your thick chest lawn,
counting all unknowing days,
times you'll turn a doorknob
softly in the night, leave
me with a croissant kiss.
Afraid to fall asleep in lateness
blending with eternity.
In moments stolen from a bag,
I put my feet across your lap
like waterfalls on mountain fists.
Sorrow's hiccups shake my ribs.
A friend has died and left his wife.
But we are here,
still sucking on a melting snow cone
wandering a carnival.
Its camera lens is sitting
on a cyclone's wall,
whirling me inside its spin.
Symmetry is candle wax--
melt wins out, beside the burn.
Vista of grief--a grappling thing.
I hoard the slivers of our moons
with canyon mouth.
Care consuming, baring all.
Heady from a funeral.
Love allergic to its loss.
Death is a retina for life itself--
coaxing us to cash its check
while pens are in our trembling hands.
JANET I. BUCK
The Viewing
~~~~~~~~~~~
I bring you an arrangement
of measured flowers in a shapely vase
we'd rather slam against some wall.
A flat of muffins no one wants.
Vacant stomachs growl at fate,
relishing their emptiness.
Your husband's life has earned that void.
"The viewing of his body," you say,
in a fog of sobs, "is scheduled
for Wednesday afternoon."
I will approach what I cannot
bear to hover beside:
tilted lampshades of your hat,
begging back his light removed.
Thirsty for prayers that don't seem real.
A time when souls must
band like wedding rings.
Death stings globes, unready flesh,
relentless stalking scorpions.
A bible seems a cruel tryst.
Sulking sorrow, cotton mouth,
dandelions stripped by wind.
Our eyes without mascara wands,
proving welts, swollen with grief's adages.
Human is a tiny wing, a piece of meat
in skies of circling scavengers.
Marble fountains--waterless.
Composure's ruler won't exist.
JANET I. BUCK
Recorded Grief
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
***For Gilbert Winget (1942-2000)
A sudden stroke. 57 meager years.
The postman finds your body down
like ears of corn that fall off trucks.
Every storm seems premature.
Your hair was barely barely gray
around dense temples lined with sweat.
I call your wife to comfort her.
All we have of your voice,
a chirping welcome on some tape
no one can bear to erase or hear.
Your pipe will sit in its iron stand.
Shirts in rows on closet arms
reaching through mahogany.
Conundrums like this exist with grief.
Washboards of our waning strength
collecting rust from thunderheads.
They toy with tears like oil drips.
We'd rather buy a brand new car
than face the lease it has on hearts.
The message that I leave for her--
as useless as a broken toothpick
forking a huge wet bale of hay.
My tongue is sand and life is paint
peeling from the shattered walls.
Your garden tools are sabers
made of tiger teeth,
ripping into memory's flesh.
Cruel timing of the world
snatching life from pressing death--
your clothes still running through the dryer
on cycles frying liable hands.
JANET I. BUCK
Mosaic Bruise
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our skin is getting to that age
where flesh is more mosaic bruise
than chalk white dust naiveté.
Tears fall in a painter's tray,
dry in clumps before the brush
has met the canvas,
leaving strokes of heraldry.
Portraits of a bathroom mirror
show wrinkled prunes.
Takahe wants the wings to fly.
We can't admit the slipping song.
Mother's health is slivered moons.
Time's embryo, once braids of wheat,
becomes the germ of olding's clues.
Suns come up and torch the flowers.
I water as fast as writers can
with syllables that slide down
laundry chutes of deaf.
Emotion's crawlspace in the basement
full of untuned memories.
Fortune of short, meted youth
orgasmic quakes we did not grab
by taking all those country roads.
I do not want the dance to end
before my toes have felt the floor.
Our bodies are a carriage drawn
by wild horses chomping
at the bit of night.
I ask you what the doctor said,
expecting him to be a wad of bubble gum
filling the gaps of nail holes.
Aware that sad is brand new shoes
with heels or toes that might not
fit the size of strength.
Days pass by on swifter feet.
An index of retracting light.
JANET I. BUCK
Sudden Strokes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the phone rings, I pick it up.
A bucket of silence sits
and you catch your breath.
Lose it again in a sea of wails
hidden by the walls of strength.
"The postman found" his life erased.
Just sitting in an empty street
beside his truck, his garden tools.
Ants crawl up the trunk of grief.
I need some words to brush off pain;
my tongue is just a flat balloon.
"He went suddenly. A heart attack."
And yours is gutted from its frame.
"The blessing was he didn't suffer."
You are left to tote that load.
Sadly now through memory.
You had a fight, well, months ago,
never patched the denim torn.
Your hair is soaked with sorrow's sweat.
You'll wear a wig to the funeral
beneath a hat of stoic lace.
I'm dipping in the wishing well
of angry things weren't otherwise.
Health is there and teasing eyes.
Too late arrives faster than
a mower trims a wayward lawn.
Mortal, in one falling sweep,
becomes a pronoun hunting for identity.
When a mother loses any child,
the sun goes down eternally;
moons just sulk in thinning light.
JANET I. BUCK
Under All Those Thunderheads
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I light a candle at my desk,
searching proper mourning words.
They all escape my sandpaper tongue
grinding at relentless grief.
You were loved by many women,
smitten by your teasing eyes,
and tender ways with blooming flowers.
Florence held you like a son.
If she were here, she'd be
on knees beside your grave.
Admonishing. Reminding you
to see a doctor for your heart
the way you bent and kissed her hand.
I'm thinking now as silence looms.
Presence is a fragile thing
wind removes at brittle whim.
No cashmere tears will calm
the wool of losing you.
I pull my husband close to me.
Run my fingers on his chest
like syllables in sentences
I'll save before they vaporize.
I'll kiss his lips of lavender,
rub his forehead with my thumbs,
cherish seasons as they are
before the blindness intervenes.
Copper pennies of the sunlight
adding up to dollar bills.
A body is a stack of hay.
We live beneath those thunderheads.
Umbrellas of unspoken love
are nails in a hole for screws.
JANET I. BUCK
The 11th Commandment
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Our family rule is gardened silence.
Mourning hats not built to pass.
Grieving dust (if it exists)
swept beneath the raw,
dense wool and thicket brush
of oriental rugs in place.
Death, a possum on center stripes
our callousness just winces at.
We aren't prepared for deeper
orbits of our loss.
And I'm unwelcome porcupines.
At 44, I cannot face a body
in a velvet casket.
Tremble in a tea cup's base,
want my father splitting loads
of firewood that won't grow back.
You knew this man
earth will bury with the leaves
but cannot saunter near his grave.
Menstrual cycles--my dissolve--
embarrasses you like
Kotex in a grocery store.
Brand and shade, oppressive depth.
My tears are rulers on your knuckles,
hoping they break in tidal waves
against great rocks of granite flesh.
If I had stayed in harbors of removal's vice,
my eyes dry ice same as yours,
I wouldn't have a headache now.
My pulse not quickened, heart not peach
thrown against torn mending wall.
But missing him is necessary gravity.
Teaches me that life is apples (tart and sweet)
fine and waxed and gently tethered to a tree,
rubbed upon a cashmere thigh.
It falls when fate, not we, decide.
Olive pits of sadness sit
in cleaning up the mess alone.
JANET I. BUCK
Anger's River
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A family friend has passed away.
It's funeral time.
Mother is shuffling cards at Bridge.
Keeping her date with Chardonnay.
Father is teeing off on a well-groomed
course of aiming at denial's ball.
They each draw Kings and Queens and Aces,
running from the lower cards,
mourning sewers filling up.
I sink on pews in slimy shame
of soggy penises of strength.
My angry river rips the rocks
in acid fugues, buries sunlight as it goes.
Our car rolls near the chapel door.
The priest reminds me not to judge.
Tears fall in the flour drawer
like someone dropping coffee cups.
Squeezed in taut removal's vice,
turning screws of leaving's itch,
I wad up wishing they were here
like tissue from my husband's pocket,
smeared with ink now senseless in uneven blur.
A flag is draped and folded with due ritual.
My sister has the grit to come,
respect the pearls that drip from eyes,
choking on death's olive pits.
Rifle shots before the noble sound of "Taps"
tilting the tree of his scissored life
at less than sixty meager years.
His widow is chased by
gutless absence of their arms
that should be there to hold her up.
Venom rising in my chest,
coming out in messy sobs.
Foam of bitter feels so wrong
but I am rabid with its pain.
Sticking pins haphazardly
in every skulking voodoo doll.
JANET KUYPERS
Lost in the breeze
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 5, 2000
I have only seen you through my rose-colored glasses
I know you thought of me
On the most important day of my life
And well, wouldn't you think of me anyway
We've had enough of a track record together to earn it
I know you thought of me
you did things for me
But a part of me ask for you there
Because I knew it would matter to you
I know you thought of me
you worked for me
But the minute you're our obligations were met
Well, my name flew away like a feather on the breeze
Caught up in the wind
And then muffled noise
That was my night
And was my life
Was forgotten
I know you were doing me a favor
And I am grateful for that
And all that I afraid I will carry with me
Is that you did what you felt you had to do
And then
Like my name, a muffle sound lost in the breeze
I left you
In you went on your way
JANET KUYPERS
praying to idols
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 20, 2000
every onc in a while
i question whether or not there is a god
bu i changed my mind
i thought i have found him
he had dark hair
almost black
just like a god should
and he had these blue eyes
not just blue
almost white
so light
they look like glass
and you could almost see right through them
and could i see right through you
if you gave me the chance?
i'd clasp my rosary necklace
and pray to the right gods
and wouldn't they be you
and i'd let the necklace drape over my shoulders
around my neck
and i'd let the rosary fall between my breasts
and you would forgive me that much more for my sins
how many hail marys
would you want me to say
i's ask
i cannot believe i have seen you
and i have talked to you
and does everyone get to see their god like this
and does everyone remember
why do you have to be my god
why did i have to see you
and talk to you
and realize how young you are
and realize how inexperienced you are
i mean, you're supposed to be the god
you're supposed to be teaching ME
is this what people think
when their gods let them down
did you let me down
or did i just never know
what i was looking for?
is this what people think
when they realize
they are only praying to idols
what then?
JANET KUYPERS
grab the other's neck
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
July 25, 2000
I don't know where to start
I don't know where all these feelings come from
I don't know how to stop them
These feelings seem to come rushing up to me
And I don't seem to have any control over them
And I hate myself for this
And I'm not supposed to be having these urges
And I hate myself for thinking that you may want me too
You know, I don't know much of anything about you
And I guess you don't know much about me
But I like what I know
Because in some respects you seem like me
Yes, I like what I know
That you work too much
And have too much drive
And you have a wild side
And you do your best to keep your wild side in check
And I still want to
Be able to straddle you
Take off your glasses
Mess up your hair
So you get strands falling around your for eye
touching your cheek
And touching you
To remind you of me
And grabb the hair at the back of your head
And cock your head back
Just so I can see your mouth starting to open
Because God, I want to see that
And it would make me know I'm right
And it makes me know that you want me too
And I'd let your hair go
And you would stare at me
And give me a look I just can't explain
And can't argue with
And have to submit to
And when I want this
I would wonder
Who would grab the other's neck
For the kiss
I still don't know who would make that move
Or who could make that move
So I'm begging you to start this cycle
I'm pleading you
I don't want to be the only one with these fantasies
Tell these stories to me
Tell me you've thought these things too
Tell me you know that we're both stuck
Because you know there's nothing we can do
And I know this too
But I'd like to hear you say it
To validate my fantasies, in a way,
Because I'd love to hear you talk that way to me
I'm a sucker for that, you know
But tell me I'm not alone in this
So I'm begging you
I'm pleading you
Tell me I'm not insane for thinking about you
Tell me you have these fantasies too
JANET KUYPERS
Start All Over
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 25, 2000
I want to be rinsed of all of this, I tell you, and
I want to be a newborn all over again and
I want to have your blood dripping all over me and
I want someone to come along and
clean me off and
smack me on the butt and
I want to start all over again
Is it your blood that I want?
Do I want someone to guide me through the birth?
Do I want to even start all over again?
JANET KUYPERS
Gerbil
~~~~~~
May 30, 2000
So I've got this gerbil
this hampster
this rat
and he's running around
and he's trying to get everything done
and he gets distracted
and he has to do something else
and runs somewhere else
it's like that little fucker
is in one of those circular wheel cages
and he's running in circles
and he's getting nowhere
and this is my life, you see
and this is my brain, you see
and this is what I go through
I don't know how to explain it
that fucking gerbil
that fucking hamster
that rat
is still going in circles
and I can't stop it
but maybe I should just take my hand
like the judge holding the gavel
and slam that damn thing down
and stop this damn cage circle
and stop this damn cycle
before it goes on any longer
JANET KUYPERS
MY DEAD DAUGHTER
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 13, 2000
I keep getting this image in my head
of a little girl, and she has long straight dark hair
and she is quiet and she comes to me and asks me questions
and I am working, but I turn around to answer her
and she sounds really intelligent
and I treat her that way and I answer her like an adult
and then I wonder if I'm not spending enough time with her
so while I'm answering I turn off my computer
and I turn around to her and I continue to look at her
I make a point to make eye contact when I communicate with her
and I get up so we can walk to the library
as I finish answering her question
and we get to the library and I ask her
is there is anything else she wants to know
because I want to be the one to tell her the truth
and she says no
she says she doesn't need anything
and underlyingly she makes me feel as if she doesn't need me
and I think,
I gave birth to that girl, she has to need something from me
and maybe she's a smart girl
and maybe she's learned to do things on her own
maybe she does all the things I have had to do in my life
maybe she understands more than I ever did
but these are my memories
these are the memories of something that has never happened
and will it ever?
I always imagined a girl
maybe that's the maternal side of me,
being a mom and knowing women
but I never knew who the father was
and I never got her name, whenever I would have these memories
maybe she never had one
GARTH WEHRFRITZ-HANSON
The Wonder
~~~~~~~~~~
The ricocheting silence
of a full moon summer night,
transforming shadows into light.
The pristine water of life
flowing from the endless river-ocean,
filling my being with such sacred notions.
The words of humankind touching heart
with sound, the mind with thought,
the spirit/soul with love like fire that's caught.
GARTH WEHRFRITZ-HANSON
Raising Lazarus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Light penetrates, pulsates, circles and spins:
until everything and everyone is filled
and transformed with it's beauty.
This light is similar, yet profoundly Holy:
recognisable, yet enigmatic.
Its properties and nature are
the same as any other, yet brighter
than a thousand heavenly bodies.
O Light, full of renewed birth,
gently awakening a dead corpse.
Blowing your breath again into
this human being Lazarus.
Responding to the love-grief
of your friends and family,
you, O Light, provide us with a
foretaste of our eternal inheritance and destiny.
GABRIELA MISTRAL
The Vigilant Woman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since I am a queen and I was once a beggar
I now live with the pure fear of you leaving me,
an pale, I ask you at all hours,
"Are you still with me? Oh, please don't abandon me!"
I would like to move ahead smiling
and trusting now that you've come,
but even in sleep I'm afraid
And ask between dreams, "Haven't you left?"
Translated by Maria Giachetti (Maria Jacketti)
Published with permission
GABRIELA MISTRAL
Wall
~~~~
Simple and extraordinary wall,
wall without weight and without color:
a hint of air in the air.
From a hillside, birds pass,
light passes like a swing,
the edge of winter passes
like a breath of summer.
A leafy wind
and embodied shadows pass.
But a sigh does not break bounds,
arms do not meet,
and no heart-to-hearty is made flesh.
Translated by Maria Giachetti (Maria Jacketti)
Published with permission
GABRIELA MISTRAL
The Sea
~~~~~~~
Again the sea, the singing and eternally unrestrained sea, again
its great light in my eyes and its gift of forgetfulness.
The sea washes away the past just a communion washes away misery
from the believer; the sea bestows the only perfect freedom. From it
comes a true state of grace, innocence, and happiness.
Man forgets his occupation and limitations; he lets the pain and
the pleasure earth gives him fall like shameful things that discolor
the sea and eist only on the earth's crust. Whatever part of him is
circumstantial, whatever is the product of time and place--all breaks
apart over the marvelous sea. We are only naked essence, man or woman,
without another name or contingency. We are the body that loves iodine
and salt--we were born for them. The eye delights over the horizon, and
the ear receives rhythm. Nothing more.
It is a redemption that returns to be lost again--like the other;
in port, redemption of the vile cities and inane actions, the dirty
fabric of life, that which can sometimes be cut mercifully with a
slash, letting it fall like an old tunic torn at the shoulders.
After a year on land, I now feel that life rots inside of me.
It softens and grows lax like a fig fallen from a branch. Among
human-fruits, I am a sea-fruit with a taste for bitter sap, destined
to be devoured by the albatross' bills.
Now the mountain seems to me a creature dehumanized by excellence;
it has nothing in common with the flesh that rejects it. It holds
onto its answers and secrets. Wild abandon exists under its skirts
for the one who adores the world below. The sea stimulates words,
and on good days it seems that its celebration was made for us...
But the journey, the true journey is not this one, or the one
that the traveller, a master of crows, undertakes (the ownership of
his life is not returned). It is not the mariner's voyage, a cause
of worry for both the seashore and the woman. It is not my journey.
The journey is one without a predestined port or destiny, without a
date. It is a trip through the sea and for the sea, with no objective
greater than the naked horizon and the eternally budding waves.
But this cannot be forced upon someone. It belongs to free souls,
inhabitants of an uncharted planet. They have no greater objective
in life than the experience of life itself: slowly coming to know
and savor the elements with lungs and loving eyes.
Translated by Maria Giachetti (Maria Jacketti)
Published with permission
GABRIELA MISTRAL
An Owl
~~~~~~
She is completely white with an ancient headdress and amber talons.
The beak belongs to an old Lady Macbeth, heavy with grief.
She is irritated by the day's leap to life, its hard-quartz
brightness. Clarity is set free; the noise of the park has imitated
Lady Macbeth's sanguinary eye.
"All those who pass by"--she tells me--"cannot understand the old
white owl, her garnet eyes. They stop in front of me, and move on to
the cage of the frentic parrots from Borneo. If they remained with me
for a time, despite my sadness. I would tell them something about the
night they ignor like a foraign land. The night is like a harvest of
seven consecutive carcasses, and I have arrived at its empty purple
almond. Night's almond is eneffable. It has softened my downy feathers
and tapered my ears. I hear...I hear the wool bundle of the alpaca's
neck, growing; I hear the horn of the black bison, hardening. I hear
the high and attentive vein in your neck.
"Touch me. See if you can enjoy a thought cloistered in this
silence. And when this night passes, see if you obtain a poem as soft
as my oblique flight."
And I do not touch her. Despite her breast of fantacy and
coagulated silence, I know her and tell her:
"You are the white Devil. You fly crookedly like the lightning
I observed one night. My eye, also, turns red in vigilance."
Translated by Maria Giachetti (Maria Jacketti)
Published by permission
GABRIELA MISTRAL
The Little New Moon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is in the sky--the new moon is looking at me-light as air.
Twilight's enchantment still endures. In the hills, glorious afternoon
tapestries linger, but amid this dazzling twilight, the new moon is
a drop of sweetness; I set my eyes on it and smile. So, Francis, in the
Father's sky, there are magnificent saints like Paul, rich with passion,
and those like Augustine, rich as twilight gold, and others who form
the great and violent West.
But my eyes have rested and want to remain on you, a little new
moon, thin as a golden hair, lost in the red sky.
Translated by Maria Giachetti (Maria Jacketti)
Published by permission
All Gabriela Mistral poems selected from "A Gabriela Mistral Reader"
Translated by Maria Giachetti and edited by Marjorie Agosin, published
1993 by White Pine Press, 10 Village Square, Fredonia, New York 14063

LI PO
Drinking Alone With The Moon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From a pot of wine among the flowers
I drank alone. There was no one with me --
Till, raising my cup, I asked the bright moon
To bring me my shadow and make us three.
Alas, the moon was unable to drink
And my shadow tagged me vacantly;
But still for a while I had these friends
To cheer me through the end of wpring......
I sang. The moon encouraged me.
I danced. My shadow tumbled after.
As long as knew, we were boon companions.
And then I was drunk, and we lost one another.
......Shall goodwill ever be secure?
I watch the long road of the River of Stars.
Anonymous translation from Three Hundred Poems of the Tang Dynasty
Published in Hong Kong by the Loon Yik Book Shop.

A New Age: The Centipede Network Of
Artists, Poets, & Writers
An Informational Journey Into A Creative Echonet [9310]
(C) CopyRight "I Write, Therefore, I Develop" By Paul
Lauda

Welcome to Newsgroup alt.centipede. Established
just for writers, poets, artists, and anyone who is creative. A
place for anyone to participate in, to share their poems, and
learn from all. A place to share *your* dreams, and philosophies.
Even a chance to be published in a magazine.
The original Centipede Network was created on May 16, 1993.
Created because there were no other networks dedicated to such
an audience, and with the help of Klaus Gerken, Centipede soon
started to grow, and become active on many world-wide Bulletin
Board Systems.
We consider Centipede to be a Public Network; however, its a
specialized network, dealing with any type of creative thinking.
Therefore, that makes us something quite exotic, since most nets
are very general and have various topics, not of interest to a
writer--which is where Centipede steps in! No more fuss. A writer
can now access, without phasing out any more conferences, since
the whole net pertains to the writer's interests. This means
that Centipede has all the active topics that any creative
user seeks. And if we don't, then one shall be created.
Feel free to drop by and take a look at newsgroup alt.centipede

Ygdrasil is committed to making literature available, and uses the
Internet as the main distribution channel. On the Net you can find all
of Ygdrasil including the magazines and collections. You can find
Ygdrasil on the Internet at:
* WEB: http://users.synapse.net/~kgerken/
* FTP: ftp://ftp.synapse.net/~kgerken/
* USENET: releases announced in rec.arts.poems, alt.zines and
alt.centipede
* EMAIL: send email to kgerken@synapse.net and tell us what version
and method you'd like. We have two versions, an uncompressed
7-bit universal ASCII and an 8-bit MS-DOS lineart-enchanced
version. These can be sent plaintext, uuencoded, or as a
MIME-attachment.

All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995,
1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 & 2000 by Klaus J. Gerken.
The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's
World-Wide Web site http://users.synapse.net/~kgerken. No other
version shall be deemed "authorized" unless downloaded from there.
Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.
All checks should be made out to: YGDRASIL PRESS
COMMENTS
* Klaus Gerken, Chief Editor - for general messages and ASCII text
submissions. Use Klaus' address for commentary on Ygdrasil and its
contents: kgerken@synapse.net
* Pedro Sena, Production Editor - for submissions of anything
that's not plain ASCII text (ie. archives, GIFs, wordprocessored
files, etc) in any standard DOS, Mac or Unix format, commentary on
Ygdrasil's format, distribution, usability and access:
art@accces.com
We'd love to hear from you!
Or mailed with a self addressed stamped envelope, to: